Compared to the Nikon D1x

Clearly the nearest match to the DCS 760 is Nikon's D1x.
There's never been a time when two digital SLR's from two manufacturers
are a closer match, both have six megapixels, both have similar heritage,
both support the same lenses. Here's a breakdown of the feature and specification
differences between the two (pictures are to scale):

Kodak
DCS 760

Nikon
D1x

Price

US$8,000

US$7,000

Dimensions

158 x 194 x 88 mm (6.2 x 7.6 x 3.5
in)

157 x 153 x 85 mm (6.2 x 6.1
x 3.4 in)

Weight

1.86 kg (4.1 lb) - with battery,
no lens

1.4 kg (2.9 lbs) - with battery,
no lens

Body

Magnesium alloy

Magnesium alloy

Based on

Nikon F5

Nikon F5 / F100

CCD pixels

6.35 million

5.24 million

Filter

IR filter

Anti-alias filter

Image pixels

6.09 million

5.90 million

Image size

3032 x 2008

3008 x 1960, 2000 x 1312

Image format

RAW (.DCR)
*1

RAW, TIFF (2), JPEG (3)

Interpolated *3

No

Yes

Colour space

Standard / Pro Photo RGB (acquire
only)

sRGB / Adobe 1998 (in-camera
option)

ISO sensitivity

80 - 400 (1/3 EV steps)

125 - 800 (1/3 EV steps) + 1600
/ 3200 HI *2

DAC

12-bit

12-bit

Lens mount

Nikon F mount

Nikon F mount

Lens compat.

Full Nikkor compatible (some caveats),
some lenses can not be used as they would break the IR filter

In-camera JPEG
/ TIFF for the DCS 760 is supposed to be coming as part of a firmware
update some time around September 2001. It wasn't available at time
of review.

*2

The D1x's ISO
1600 and ISO 3200 sensitivities are 'pushes' of what the camera is
calibrated to achieve (they are menu options). The DCS 760 can be
pushed to ISO 800 and ISO 1600 equiv. by deliberately underexposing.

*3

The D1x 'creates'
the final image from a source image which has twice as much horizontal
resolution as vertical. It down-samples horizontally and up-samples
vertically (using some of the additional horizontal pixels to assist
in the vertical up-sampling).

Based on specifications alone the D1x takes the lead,
it's physically smaller and lighter yet just as well (better?) built than
the DCS 760, has better white balance options, in-camera JPEG/TIFF *1,
in-camera colour space, higher sensitivity support and a faster top end
shutter speed. The D1x also has a built-in anti-alias filter which I do
see it as an advantage as long as it doesn't have a large detrimental
effect on the image. And it's less expensive than the DCS 760 (for now).

On the positive side for the DCS 760 it has slightly
higher sensor resolution (in a square pixel layout) which isn't being
'created' by in-camera processing, the sensor is physically larger (better
for those who like to shoot at wide angle focal lengths), it has dual
storage card support and a built-in microphone for voice annotations.

Compared to D1x: Colour (Kodak Q60 target)

The charts below were shot in natural light (daylight
next to a window) with the same lens at the camera's lowest ISO setting
(80 for the DCS 760, 125 for the D1x) as native RAW format. They were
then loaded into each camera's RAW conversion application and saved as
TIFF with the following settings:

Thanks to a problem with JPEG files created by the reviewed
version of DCS Photo Desk (1.2.0b) the DCS 760's JPEG files were created
by re-saving TIFF's in Photoshop. There is also no way to save DCS 760
images directly into the sRGB colour space. The 'standard' colour space
is supposed to be a slightly wider version of sRGB and so should look
approximately the same (a little duller). Saving from Photo Desk as ProPhoto
RGB and then doing a profile conversion in Photoshop did not help the
colour.

A simple visual comparison of the two charts shows that
the DCS 'standard' colour space is fairly close to sRGB, it does appear
to be slightly wider and that will leave the D1x's colour looking better
on your web browser. That said the differences are more pronounced loading
the two wider colour space, calibrated images (ProPhoto RGB / Adobe RGB)
into a colour space 'smart' application such as . If you don't have the
ProPhoto
RGB ICC profile you can download it here.

Overall it's a very close run thing, the D1x appears
to me to have slightly more accurate reds (DCS 760's tend towards orange)
and a better overall grasp of the balance of the gray scale - dark grays
being dark. Both cameras can produce excellent, accurate colour. With
the addition of Adobe RGB to Nikon Capture 2 and ProPhoto RGB to DCS Photo
Desk (1.2.0 onwards) you can now be sure you're getting matched colour
out of either of these cameras.

BONUS: The bonus of course with the D1x is that it can
produce JPEG's in-camera and that you can select their colour space in-camera.
That means you can shoot into a known colour space without having to do
any post-processing. Lets hope Kodak's in-camera JPEG is going to be this
good...